


Something. Anything.

by mambo



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Could Probably Read Steve/Bucky Or Steve/Sam Into It If You're Trying, Gen, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 07:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14492313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mambo/pseuds/mambo
Summary: -- MAJOR INFINITY WAR SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. --“Guess I can take his gun,” says the talking raccoon that came with Thor as he approaches Steve. Steve looks up; somehow, the raccoon looks sad. “Groot disappeared, too,” he explains, and doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t have to.





	Something. Anything.

**Author's Note:**

> I literally cannot focus at work because I am too busy thinking about Infinity War.
> 
> Many thanks to [Rachel](hakunahistata.tumblr.com) for reading this over and telling me it was worth posting!

“Take me with you,” Steve whispers to the ground. 

The dirt, leaves, and ashes say nothing in return.

“Cap,” Rhodey says into his headpiece. “I’ve lost Sam.”

Steve shuts his eyes, digging his fingers into the earth where Bucky stood just moments before. 

He needs to collect their ashes. He needs to have something to bring Sam’s mother, probably waiting in her D.C. apartment for a son who hasn’t been home in years now. He needs to tell her how good Sam was, how proud of Sam he is.

He needs to tell her that she won’t be the only one who misses him with an ache he can’t explain.

A soft breeze begins to blow and Steve’s eyes go wide as the ashes around him start to move.

“No,” he says in a hoarse voice. “Stop,” he commands uselessly as all that’s left of Bucky Barnes begins to fly away in the wind. He reaches out with shaking fingers, desperate to try to grasp any part of Bucky he can get to, but his digits catch onto nothing.

He didn’t realize he had tears running down his cheeks, leaving clean tracks of skin through the mud and blood smeared all over him from the fight.

“Guess I can take his gun,” says the talking raccoon that came with Thor as he approaches Steve. Steve looks up; somehow, the raccoon looks sad. He listlessly kicks at the edge of Bucky’s Wakandan-made machine gun before looking at Steve. “Seemed like a nice guy. Deadly, but a nice guy,” he adds as he picks up Bucky’s gun. He sighs, turning it over in his hands as he assesses the weapon, then puts it back on the ground. “Groot disappeared, too,” he explains, and doesn’t say anything else. He doesn’t have to.

“The tree?” Steve asks with a scratchy voice. The raccoon nods. It feels like days ago that Steve introduced himself to Groot in battle; though, it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes. Seconds ago, Bucky stood here. Now, he’s gone, too. “I’m sorry for your loss,” Steve says.

“Thanks,” the raccoon says. “Last time Groot died, he came back. I’m not so sure this time.”

“Bucky came back, too,” Steve says. “He had just come back,” he says, thinking of the photos Bucky sent him of the farm, of Shuri in her lab, of the life he’d built for himself in Wakanda. Steve had been so careful to stay away, to let Bucky heal without him. Now that there’s nothing left of him, Steve wishes he’d stayed the whole time by Bucky’s side, sleeping each night beneath Bucky’s cryo chamber, never letting him out of his sight. 

God, Bucky had told him so many times that he didn’t have to do it alone.

But Steve had left him alone just because some misplaced sense of duty and righteousness. What would have been right was to stay by Bucky’s side.

“Groot left,” the raccoon says, thumping down on a nearby tree stump. He puts his head in his hands and sighs. “Groot’s gone and now I’m stuck here on a planet I don’t know with a bunch of freaks I’ve never met before. Except Thor, but following him’s only gotten me into trouble so that’s not a freaking comfort,” he says. “I don’t even know what happened to my friends,” he adds in a quieter voice. “I don’t even know where they are.”

Steve looks up at the small crowd gathering around him: Thor, General Okoye, Natasha, Rhodey, Bruce. They’re still here. He’s still here. Shell-shocked and aching, but alive.

He can’t follow Bucky. He can’t follow Sam. He wishes he could, but he stands up instead.

“Stay with us,” Steve says to the raccoon. He swallows hard. “Let’s try to find them again. Groot, Bucky, Sam… All of them.”

Rocket looks up. “What can you do about it?” he asks, seemingly trying to sound sarcastic but coming out desperate.

“Something,” he says. “We start there. We start by doing something. Anything. We just have to start.”

The raccoon looks at Steve for a long moment, beady eyes trailing him up and down. He sighs, then shakes his head just a little before standing up again and holding a paw out to Steve. “I’m Rocket,” he says.

“Steve Rogers,” Steve says, taking Rocket’s paw in his and shaking it. “Let’s get going.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still over at [whtaft](whtaft.tumblr.com) if you wanna chat about Infinity War or anything else. You can reblog this fic on Tumblr [here](http://whtaft.tumblr.com/post/173460393554/something-anything-mambo-multifandom).


End file.
